In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America. In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag. Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever. To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. InFlags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man. But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo three were killed during the battle were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back." Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well asFlags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Say "Iwo Jima," and what comes to mind? Most likely a famous photograph from 1945: six tired, helmeted Marines, fresh from a long, terrifying and bloody battle, work together to raise the American flag on Mount Suribachi. Bradley's father, John, was one of the six. In this voluminous and memorable work of popular history mixed with memoir, Bradley and Powers (White Town Drowsing) reconstruct those Marines' experiences, and those of their Pacific Theater comrades. The authors begin with the six soldiers' childhoods. Soon enough, bombs have fallen on Pearl Harbor, and by May '43 the young men have become proud leathernecks. Bradley and Powers incorporate accounts of specific battles, like "Hellzapoppin Ridge" (Bougainville, December '43), and pull in corps life and lore, from the tough-minded to the slightly silly, from mandatory penis inspections (medics checking for VD) to life in the pitch-dark of "Tent City No. 1." And they cover the strategy and tactics leading up to the awful battle for the islandÄthe navy's disputed plans for offshore bombardment, cut at the last minute from 10 days to three; the 16 miles of Japanese underground tunnels, far more than Allied intelligence expected. A quarter of the book follows the fighting on Iwo Jima, sortie by sortie. The final chapters pursue the veterans' subsequent lives: Bradley and Powers set themselves against often-sanctimonious tradition, retrieving the stories of six more or less troubled individuals from the anonymity of heroic myth. A simple thesis emerges from all the detail worked into this touching group portrait, in a comment by John Bradley: "The heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who didn't come back." No reader will forget the lesson. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

The story of those six young American flag raisers in the famed portrait of Iwo Jima, told by the son of one of the soldiers. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Author James Bradley is the son of Doc Bradley, one of the flagraisers. He is a writer and speaker living in Westchester County, New York. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

1. Sacred Ground	p. 1
2. All-American Boys	p. 15
3. America's War	p. 55
4. Call of Duty	p. 73
5. Forging the Spearhead	p. 99
6. Armada	p. 121
7. D-Day	p. 149
8. D-Day Plus One	p. 169
9. D-Day Plus Two	p. 179
10. D-Day Plus Three	p. 193
11. "So Every Son of a Bitch on This Whole Cruddy Island Can See It!"	p. 199
12. Myths	p. 213
13. "Like Hell with the Fire Out"	p. 227
14. Antigo	p. 249
15. Coming Home	p. 263
16. The Mighty 7th	p. 279
17. A Conflict of Honor	p. 297
18. Movies and Monuments	p. 315
19. Casualties of War	p. 329
20. Common Virtue	p. 339
Acknowledgments	p. 355
Interior Photo List and Credits	p. 357
Notes	p. 361
Bibliography	p. 365
Index	p. 367

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.